WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday blocked a new law in Texas requiring voters to show photo identification before they can cast a ballot, citing a concern that it could harm Hispanic voters who lacked such documents.

The law, which was approved in May 2011, required voters to show government-issued photo identification, such as a driver's license, military identification card, birth certificate with a photo, current U.S. passport, or concealed handgun permit.

The Justice Department said that data from Texas showed that almost 11 percent of Hispanic voters, or more than 300,000, did not have a driver's license or state-issued identification card, and that plans to mitigate those concerns were incomplete.

"Hispanic registered voters are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanic registered voters to lack such identification," Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, head of the department's civil rights division, said in a letter outlining the objection to the Texas director of elections.

Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry criticized the decision, saying he was obligated to ensure the integrity of elections.

"The DOJ has no valid reason for rejecting this important law, which requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane," he said in a statement.

It was the second state voter identification law blocked by the Obama administration, which earlier prevented a strict new law in South Carolina from taking effect. South Carolina then sued in federal court seeking approval of its law.

Under the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, certain states like Texas must seek approval from the Justice Department or the federal courts for changes made to state voting laws and boundaries for voting districts.

The Obama administration has already challenged the state's attempt to re-draw congressional districts and that fight is before the courts. Texas in January also sued to get approval for its voter identification law.

Several Republican-governed states, including Texas, Kansas and Wisconsin, have adopted stricter new voter identification laws, arguing they were needed to prevent ballot box fraud. A judge in Wisconsin on Monday issued an injunction against that state's law.

Some civil rights groups have said the new laws threatened to suppress minority voters. Democrats have also said they were aimed at squeezing out university students from the polling booths and seniors who tended to vote for Democrats.

"Photo identification requirements for voters drastically affect the electoral participation of the poor, the elderly, and the transient, which means those who need their government's ear most will be the last to be heard," said Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, a Texas state Democratic lawmaker.

The Justice Department said that potential voters in Texas would require two other identification documents to get a certificate allowing them to vote, which could lead to them paying high fees for copies of legal documents such as birth certificates.

Additionally, nearly one-third of the counties in the state do not have offices where potential voters can obtain a driver's license or state identification card and some residents live more than 100 miles away, the Justice Department said.

Efforts to educate voters about the new identification requirements were also incomplete and the state did not submit evidence of voter impersonation not already addressed under existing state laws, the administration said.

"The state has failed to demonstrate why it could not meet its stated goals of ensuring electoral integrity and deterring ineligible voters from voting in a manner that would have voided this retrogressive effect," Perez said.

Republicans said that the Obama administration's decision to oppose Texas' voter identification law smacked of politics ahead of the 2012 congressional and presidential elections.

"Today's decision reeks of politics and appears to be an effort by the Department of Justice to carry water for the President's reelection campaign," said U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

The Texas lawsuit for approval of the voter identification law is: State of Texas v. Holder in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 12-cv-128.

The controversy over requiring voters to provide photo IDs has reached the world stage.

The United Nations Human Rights Council is investigating the issue of American election laws at its gathering on minority rights in Geneva, Switzerland.. This, despite the fact that some members of the council have only in the past several years allowed women to vote, and one member, Saudi Arabia, still bars women from the voting booth completely.

Officials from the NAACP are presenting their case against U.S. voter ID laws, arguing to the international diplomats that the requirements disenfranchise voters and suppress the minority vote.

Eight states have passed voter ID laws in the past year, voter ID proposals are pending in 32 states and the Obama administration has recently moved to block South Carolina and Texas from enacting their voter ID measures.

"This really is a tactic that undercuts the growth of your democracy," said Hillary Shelton, the NAACP's senior vice president for advocacy, about voter photo ID requirements.

In a Fox News interview prior to his trip, Shelton said the message from the NAACP delegation to the Human Rights Council is that the photo ID law "undercuts the integrity of our government, if you allow it to happen. It's trickery, it's a sleight-of-hand. We're seeing it happen here and we don't want it to happen to you, and we are utilizing the U.N. as a tool to make sure that we are able to share that with those countries all over the world."

The United Nations has no legal jurisdiction over the American electoral system, which Shelton acknowledges. Asked whether he thinks that the U.N. should be involved in domestic American laws, he answered, "No, not specifically. The U.N. should certainly be involved in sharing a best practice for the world."

"We're the greatest country on the face of the earth, but we can be better still," he said.

The NAACP had scheduled two American citizens to present their claims at the U.N. panel who, the group says, worry they will be disenfranchised by the requirement to present a photo ID to vote. The civil rights group says one, Kemba Smith Pradia, was convicted of a drug-related offense and is concerned that if she moves back to Virginia from the Midwest, state law will block her voting because of her record, even though she was granted clemency by President Bill Clinton.
A second American, Austin Alex, is a Texas Christian University student. The NAACP says he is worried that he will be barred from voting because he only holds an out-of-state driver's license and a non-government student ID, not a Texas issued photo ID.
But supporters of photo ID requirements argue that states provide such identifications for free, and in some cases, voters can cast provisional or absentee ballots that do not even require a photo ID. The NAACP disputes those claims.

The U.N. Human Rights Council members include communist China and Cuba. In addition, several Arab nations are on the council that have only granted the right to vote to women in recent years, such as Kuwait in 2005 and Qatar in 2003. Women in the Republic of Moldova have had the right to vote for less than 20 years.

Council member Saudi Arabia announced six months ago that women will be granted the right to vote, but that change does not go into effect until 2015.

"The idea that this is a human rights abuse is ridiculous," said Hans von Spakovsky, a voter fraud expert and senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, in Washington, D.C.
"The UN allowing this to take place under their roof makes them, unfortunately, complicit in what really is a publicity stunt by the NAACP, and I think it wastes their time, when they should be going after real and sustained human rights abuses like the things going on in horrible places, like North Korea."

Spakovsky, who supports voter photo ID laws, says it is a hypocritical and meaningless waste of time to present a case against American electoral laws at the UN forum.

"I think the leadership of the NAACP is, quite frankly, doing a disservice to American citizens and the democracy that we have here, by going abroad to the Human Rights Council, which is filled with dictatorships and other countries that actually and really abuse human rights."
He called the council's weighing of U.S. laws "an insult to the United States that the NAACP thinks we should be getting advice from those kinds of countries, which are not democracies, on how to administer elections in this country.”

But Shelton argues that the NAACP's presence at the Geneva conference can teach other nations how to improve their electoral systems.

"We can learn a lot from those who haven't gone through as much as we have," he said.

"Everyone has a different struggle, but there's lessons to learn from whoever we come across ... but there's also some things I think we can still help teach the rest of the world."

A state delegate last week challenged Takoma Park’s non-U.S. citizen voting law, 20 years after the city enacted the policy that allows all noncitizens who live in Takoma Park to vote in city elections.

Del. Patrick L. McDonough (R-Baltimore County) of Middle River targeted Takoma Park after proposing legislation that would prohibit noncitizens from voting in municipal elections anywhere in the state. Five other municipalities, all in Montgomery County — Barnesville, Garrett Park, Glen Echo, Martin’s Additions and Somerset — allow noncitizens to vote, according to the Maryland Municipal League.

“If Osama bin Laden was alive today and he moved to Takoma Park, he could register to vote and hold office,” said McDonough, known for his opposition to illegal immigration. “That’s how ridiculous the system is.”

But Takoma Park Mayor Bruce Williams and others with key roles in the creation of the law, enacted on March 31, 1992, said it makes sense for people who have green cards, those who are working toward U.S. citizenship or in the country for diplomatic purposes, to be allowed to participate in local politics.

The city strongly opposed McDonough’s bill in written testimony to the Ways and Means Committee, which had a hearing on Dec. 7.

McDonough told the committee he doesn’t think legal immigrants should be allowed to vote, either. He said municipal election law should be consistent with federal and state regulations.

“A foreigner might have a different foreign policy interest, but when you are talking about choosing a mayor or a city council member, your interests are equal to your neighbor,” said George L. Leventhal (D-At Large), a Montgomery County Council member from Takoma Park who co-chaired the Share the Vote campaign in 1991 with state Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery). “If you own a home, if you want your garbage picked up or your street paved, that really doesn’t address the issue of national citizenship.”

The Share the Vote campaign pressed Takoma Park citizens to vote yes on a nonbinding referendum on the proposal.

Raskin, a law professor at American University, began researching the history and constitutionality of noncitizen suffrage in 1990, when he, Leventhal and other members of the Takoma Park redistricting task force found there were almost double the amount of eligible voters in some of the city’s wards compared with its Ward 5, which has a significant immigrant population.

Many states allowed white, male property owners from other countries to vote until the early 1900s, when anti-immigration policies led to a steady decline in immigrant suffrage, Raskin wrote in a paper on the subject. The Maryland constitution requires U.S. citizenship to vote in state elections, but that qualification is not applicable to municipalities other than Baltimore city, according to the Legislative Services report issued last week to the General Assembly.

In November 1991, the referendum passed by 92 votes in Takoma Park. The City Council voted in favor of the resolution in February 1992.

“The basic rationale for it was that lawful noncitizens were en route to becoming citizens, and we wanted to incorporate them in the community,” Raskin said.

A bill similar to McDonough’s proposal received an unfavorable report in the State House committee in March 1992, and Takoma Park has allowed noncitizens to vote ever since. The Ways and Means Committee had not voted on McDonough’s bill as of Monday. McDonough said he expects it will fail but that he is contemplating challenging the law in court.

“Our feeling was that we were legal resident aliens. We paid taxes like everyone else, but we had no voice in anything that went on,” said Anne Norman, who in 1971 moved to Takoma Park from the United Kingdom with her husband. Both lobbied for the law in 1991. They became U.S. citizens two years ago.

“We were effectively disenfranchised,” Norman said. “If the citizens of a particular community have come together and agreed that it’s a good idea, it should be up to that particular community.”

In the 2009 Takoma Park election, the most recent noncitizen voting data available shows 32 of 436 registered non-U.S. citizens voted. There were 433 registered non-U.S. citizens for the 2011 election, in which 1,914 people voted.

“What it certainly has not done is what the xenophobes said it would do, which is to turn Takoma Park into some kind of haven for illegal immigrants,” Leventhal said. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s made any change whatsoever.”

Still, Williams said it’s important Takoma Park preserve the policy.

“We don’t need the state telling us how to run local elections,” Williams said. “This makes it so that all of our residents can participate. They live here. We want them to participate in their community.”

__________________ “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not” - Thomas Jefferson, 1801.

I see someone earlier in the thread how brought up how much of a hassle it is for these poor immigrants to procure the paperwork they need to get a state ID. But they need all that stuff to get into the U.S. legally so it shouldn't be any prob...

I see someone earlier in the thread how brought up how much of a hassle it is for these poor immigrants to procure the paperwork they need to get a state ID. But they need all that stuff to get into the U.S. legally so it shouldn't be any prob...

A federal judge on Thursday blocked key provisions of a *Florida law regulating groups that organize voter-registration drives, escalating a debate over newly restrictive voter-access laws that have become a major issue in the presidential campaign.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle marked the first time a federal jurist has struck down provisions in one of the voting laws passed by nearly 20 states since last year. The laws are a flashpoint in President Obama’s battle for reelection, with his supporters saying they target minorities and other pro-Obama groups. Republicans say the measures are needed to combat voter fraud.

In Tallahassee, Hinkle blocked Florida from enforcing parts of its new voting law, including provisions that require groups that collect voter registration forms to return them to state officials within 48 hours. The provisions also mandate that all volunteer workers must file sworn statements saying they will obey state laws in registering voters.

The judge called the 48-hour deadline “harsh and impractical” and said the sworn statement “could have no purpose other than to discourage voluntary participation in legitimate, indeed constitutionally protected, activities.’’

“An election-code provision . . . must serve a legitimate purpose that is sufficient to warrant the burden it imposes on the right to vote,’’ Hinkle wrote in granting a preliminary injunction blocking the provisions. Other parts of the law remain intact, including one that requires voter-registration organizations to “pre-register” with the state before enaging in voter-registration drives.

The Obama campaign and lawyers for the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, which challenged the law on behalf of three groups that register Florida voters, hailed the decision. “This ruling is a significant victory . . . for the voters of Florida and for the constitutional right to engage with fellow citizens and ultimately to help people get on the voter rolls,’’ said Lee Rowland, who argued the case for the center.

John Lucas, a spokesman for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, said the office is reviewing the ruling and declined to say if the state will appeal. Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) in May 2011 signed the legislation, part of a wave of state laws regulating how people can vote.

The laws have drawn strong opposition from civil rights and other groups, which argue that they are designed to stifle voting among young people and minorities, who tend to vote Democratic. Republicans say they are needed to make elections fairer and accuse the Obama adminstration of opposing the measures to further the president’s reelection prospects.

The battle has focused mostly on the nine states that passed laws requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. A state judge has ruled Wisconsin’s voter identification law unconstitutional, and the Justice Department has blocked such laws in Texas and South Carolina. The department acted under the Voting Rights Act, which requires some states or counties with a history of discrimination to receive federal approval before changing their voting laws.

Five Florida counties are subject to that provision, and a separate legal battle is underway in federal court in the District over whether to approve provisions of the state law in those counties.

Let me see, Dolores Huerta receives a metal from Barry. There is a hard fought battle going on to prevent people from having to show they are a citizen to vote. Nothing going on here at all. It is this type of bullshit that keeps me leaning to the right~

__________________The Trump campaign and Black Lives Matter movement are perfect for each other. Both sides filled with easily led and angry nitwits convinced they are victims~